It was my great pleasure, last week, to join the PPG group
for an organised wander around the Scottish Borders.
Armed with our instruments of choice (I was packing my
trusty old Canon 5D Mk iv) we set off from West Lothian to make the journey
South at 7am on a Sunday morning.
The weather wasn’t looking great: the BBC weather app
suggested a slight threat of rain for much of the day, though, in the end, we
were only troubled with keeping the equipment dry on a couple of occasions as
rain clouds drifted quickly through the places we’d stopped; on one of those
occasions – at Scotts view - we could plainly see the clouds casting their
burden over the Eildon Hills.
Our first port of call was Kelso. There we stopped for
breakfast before taking a stroll through the quiet, cobbled streets before
walking on to the magnificent Abbey.
Next town on our tour was Jedburgh, along with its own
Abbey.
With our cards filling up, we journeyed on to the
spectacular Leaderfoot Viaduct. This is a remarkable piece of Victorian engineering
and offers ample forage for the myopic eyes of our cameras.
It was then on to Scott’s View. This is where I earlier
mentioned watching the rain clouds unburden themselves as they passed through
the valleys of the Eildon Hills.
From thence, we tucked away our gear until we reached the
busy streets of Melrose. While there, we visited the Harmony Garden, with many
of its cultivated gardens in full bloom. Again, wonderful images to capture –
and we captured plenty.
Leaving Melrose behind, we sped off to The Haining Estate in
Selkirk in order to peruse the 18th Century Palladian Mansion House
which stands in glory before Loch Haining. We also enjoyed a short woodland
walk which took us down to the Lochside itself.
We ended our day at St. Mary’s Loch, settling just beside
the Glen Café – though we’d arrived too late in the evening to find it still open.
Corolla’s fish and chip shop in Galashiels was still open
though, and a few of the group partook of their wares before we finally packed
the gear away and headed back to Livingston.
All in all though, it was a great trip, and I have since
processed just a few of the near 200 images I took on the day.
I hope you enjoy them.
